Feeling drained? Here's how to lighten your mental load
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What is the mental load and why does it feel overwhelming?
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You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, it's Marielle. So the knob on one of my kitchen cabinets fell off the other day. I was putting away the dishes. And I did try to screw it back on, but it wasn't working. I was going to need to take out the tools, and I did not have the energy for that. Also, I'm going to be honest, I didn't even take the screw out. So here we are, days later, and every time I open the cabinet, I forget and I get poked in the hand by the pointy end of a screw. Why does it feel like there's so much we have to do just to stay alive and be reasonably comfortable? Also, these tasks, they always make themselves known to me at the least convenient times. Like I go to wash my hands and wouldn't you know it, the soap dispenser is empty.
These tasks fall under the category of the mental load, which is basically the weight of all the things you need to do or think you need to do to stay alive, maintain a household and take care of your loved ones. The load feels heavy and it often feels emotional, like it's deeper than the soap or the screw or the carton of milk that you just noticed is almost empty.
We start to go, oh, I need to remember the milk because if I don't, my child will be hungry in the morning. If they're hungry in the morning, they'll show up at school and they won't have enough energy because they will not have had breakfast. And then if they don't have enough energy, they might not actually do as well in their test. Now, if your brain starts to do this kind of like, from A to B to C to disaster, this is in part because this is emotional thinking work.
This is Leah Rappanner, a sociologist at the University of Melbourne who studies this concept of the mental load. She says one tip is just to start to notice these moments and specifically how weighty a certain task feels.
How can we see it? Because once we see it, we can't unsee it. And once we see it, we can start to address it.
Leah has a new book out called Drained. Reduce your mental load to do less and be more. It offers research-backed tools to help identify where your energy is going and how you might spend it better. Now, research shows that women and mothers tend to carry most of the mental load in their households, and they're feeling burnt out because of it. It does feel worth acknowledging that here. But whether we're partnered or single, and regardless of our gender or sexual orientation... Everyone is carrying a mental load. Especially if we're caring for other people. On this episode of Life Kit, how to lighten your mental load. Life Kit reporter Andy Tegel talks to Leah about different categories within the mental load, about how you can audit your mental load expenditure, and about why it's important to leave space for your goals and ambitions and not just the everyday tasks that need doing.
Leah says there are three characteristics of the mental load that can often make it difficult for people to talk about, let alone make changes to. First, it's invisible and internal.
So, for example, right now, as you're listening to my voice, you may simultaneously be like, oh, I got to make sure that my kid's picked up or the dog is sick or have I called the vet or have I checked in to see if my aging parent has taken their medicine. Second thing. It's boundaryless. You don't go like, I didn't do the dishes last night. Let me just pack those up and put them in the car and bring them to work. You don't, but you bring your mental load everywhere. And third, it's enduring. Because it's tied to the things we love the most, our family, our friends, our careers, our lives, our dreams, and our passions.
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